The Forum, Hatfield

Hatfield is identified in The Stage, 3 November 1977, as the venue after Grays for Alan Clements’ touring production of A Kiss for Cinderella. ‘J. M. Barrie’s World War I fantasy “A Kiss for Cinderella” is a curious choice for a touring production, but Alan Clements’ revival, seen at Hatfield Forum, is a commendable attempt to find something different with which to entice parents and children to the smaller civic theatres. Though it is quite elaborately staged, particularly in the second act, which utilises children from local dancing schools, the underlying atmosphere, no doubt charming audiences during the 1914-18 conflict, is almost completely absent and modern children, not to mention their mothers and fathers, will be quite at a loss to understand its significance. If, indeed, there is any significance in this tale of a rootless girl who subsidises her charitable work out of her wages as a household skivvy, is befriended by a suspicious policeman and ends up in hospital with exposure after being found in the street following an imaginary ball in which her policeman was Prince Charming. This example of Barrie’s “little mother” fixation is neatly acted by June Gray as Cinderella, Terence Deville as both her employer and the agitated King and Robert Boyd as the simple-hearted policeman with an “infailable” (sic) test for determining a real lady. A more stylish production might bring more out of this unusual play’. The Stage, 24 November 1977.